Cut to the Bone (Body Farm 8)

As he’d hoped, the keys were still in the ignition of Kittredge’s unmarked Crown Vic. You’d think a detective, a guy who’d probably spent years investigating robberies and auto thefts, would be careful with his keys. Or maybe, Decker thought as he slid across the ripped upholstery and cranked the balky engine, he’s hoping somebody will actually steal this piece of shit. Jerking the gearshift into reverse, he smoked down the driveway, nearly backing over a startled uniformed officer, who was half sitting on the hood of the patrol unit parked in the street. Decker gave a brief wave of apology and roared away, his right hand reaching for the radio as soon as he was traveling straight. “Dispatch, this is Lieutenant Decker. Can you give me a physical address for Dr. Brockton? Bill Brockton — William, maybe? The UT bone doc?”

“Stand by, Lieutenant.”

Decker was hurtling north, which was the only way it was possible to head from the dead end where Satterfield lived. In less than a mile, though — thirty seconds, at the rate he was going — he’d reach an intersection and have to choose: west, toward downtown and UT and most of the Knoxville suburbs, or east, toward Holston Hills and Seymour and Strawberry Plains. “Come on, come on,” he muttered as the stop sign loomed a hundred yards ahead. He considered stopping at the intersection and waiting for the answer, but if he was right — if Satterfield was alive and gunning for Brockton — there wasn’t time. Guessing, Decker took the left turn in a power slide, aiming the car west, envisioning its eight cylinders firing like the barrels of a Gatling gun.

“Dispatch to Decker.” Finally.

“Decker. Go ahead.”

“That address is 3791 Clifton Drive. That’s in Sequoyah Hills.”

“Can you give me directions from Kingston Pike and Neyland?”

“Stand by.”

Decker was less impatient this time; it would take five minutes to reach downtown, and another five from there to Sequoyah. By the time the dispatcher radioed back with directions, the Crown Vic was wailing along the river on Neyland, past the stadium and the basketball arena and the sewage plant. He killed the siren and the blue lights when he turned off Kingston Pike on to Cherokee — not out of respect for the fancy neighborhood’s peace and quiet, but to avoid announcing his arrival. He was swooping down the curving boulevard toward the riverfront when the dispatcher called him. “Lieutenant Decker, do you need backup? Is there a situation at Dr. Brockton’s residence?”

“Negative,” he replied at once. Backup and bureaucracy were the last things he needed. “I just need to drop something off. Hey, is there a patrol unit posted there?”

“Not anymore. Was, anyhow, till a few minutes ago. The watch commander pulled the plug once they got the ID on the suspect’s body.”

“Makes sense.”

A moment later, the radio intruded on him. “Deck, this is Hackworth. Where the hell are you, and why? Am I to understand that you’re no longer at the Satterfield house? That you’re en route to the Brockton house?”

This was trickier. Being evasive with the dispatcher was one thing; lying to the captain was another, far bigger thing. “Yes sir, I am en route there.”

“You? The whole team? What the hell are you doing, Deck? You’re supposed to be guarding the perimeter of the Satterfield house.”

“Yes, sir. My men are still on that. All over it.” He kept talking, improvising, not wanting to give the captain an opening. “It’s a personal errand, sir. Kevin took a class from Dr. Brockton a couple years ago.” That much was true. “The Doc was one of Boomer’s idols.” Also true. “I’m taking something over there, to the Doc. A memento, sort of. Something I think Kevin would’ve wanted me to do.” It was lame, but even that had some truth to it: safety; protection; justice — Kevin would certainly have wanted his big brother to deliver those things.

“Stand by, Deck.”

Shit, thought Decker. He’s calling Kittredge. If Kittredge tells him the ID’s no good, he’ll figure it out. He’ll know what I’m doing, and he’ll tell me to stand down. “Shit.” He said it aloud this time. He didn’t want to stand down; didn’t want to wait for backup. Wouldn’t stand down; wouldn’t wait.

Careening down the final curve, he saw the river glittering through the trees on his left, separated from the road by a ribbon of shoreline park. He slung the car around the traffic circle; around the big, lighted fountain with its geyser of glowing water. Then he reached out and switched off the radio, so he would not hear the order that he was about to violate.

CHAPTER 47

Tyler

Slumping back against the streetlight, Tyler pressed two fingertips to his neck and checked his watch: 30 heartbeats in 10 seconds; 180 beats per minute. Not his max, but damn good. So why didn’t he feel better? Normally a run this hard — five fast miles, pounding up Cherokee Boulevard to Kingston Pike and then back along the riverfront — would clear his mind completely, put him into a zenlike state of blissful exhaustion. Tonight, though, all he had was the exhaustion, not the zenlike bliss. Zenlike bliss? What the hell was that? He couldn’t even remember it, let alone feel it.

Shit, he thought, I have to do it. He’d been fighting it, resisting it for three days, even though he knew it was the right thing. He pushed off from the lamppost and found himself jogging — slogging, more like — up a side street, away from the gravel lot at the end of the boulevard where his truck was parked. Away from his truck; toward Dr. B’s house. Sweaty and sticky though he was, he couldn’t put it off any longer; he had to tell Brockton he was quitting. There was no guarantee that quitting the program would make it possible to fix what had gone wrong between him and Roxanne; what was going wrong within himself. But staying in the program — walking through the valley of the shadow of death, again and again — would almost certainly wreck things forever. “You might think it’s hypocritical of me,” Rox had written to him in her last note. “After all, as a doctor, I’ll spend decades keeping company with death. But I’ll be pushing against it — opposing it, not embracing it.”

Tyler had tried to figure out how Dr. B did it: The guy was up to his elbows in death and dismemberment, yet he had one of the sunniest dispositions Tyler had ever seen. How did he do it? How did he keep from being dragged down by the cases, by the oppressive weight of evil? Damned if I know, he thought.

The Brocktons’ house was two blocks off the boulevard, in a pocket of houses that were much smaller and less showy than the mansions along Cherokee. The house was tucked deep in the lot, surrounded by maples and hemlocks. From the curb Tyler wasn’t sure anyone was home — the front windows were dark — so he jogged down the driveway and toward the back, to check for lights in the kitchen, dining room, den, or master bedroom. Tyler had fond memories of the master bedroom — of the seven Edenic days and nights he and Roxanne had spent there, ostensibly keeping an eye on the place, but in reality having eyes only for one another. Lotta water under the bridge since then, he thought — most of it muddy and malevolent, or so it seemed at the moment.

Parked halfway down the darkened driveway was an old Corolla; was that what Dr. B had ended up buying for Jeff, after Tyler refused to sell the truck? Tyler stopped and peered through the driver’s window. A five-speed; good, he thought.

Now that he’d stopped moving again, his legs turned leaden, and a sharp pain began gnawing at the meniscus cartilage on the inside of his left knee. He thought about turning tail, waiting until tomorrow, catching Dr. B in his office first thing. But the prospect of leaving things hanging for another night — another sleepless night — was unbearable, so he turned toward the house again, limping past the garage and up the stairs to the backyard and the patio off the kitchen. Pitiful, he thought. Not just the limp, but the whole sorry mess he’d made of things, first with Roxanne and now with Dr. B.

Golden light poured through the windows of the kitchen and back door, pooling on the flagstones of the patio, and Tyler suddenly felt himself drowning in that pool of light and warmth, drowning with longing and loneliness. A figure —

Jeff? — emerged from the stairwell and turned toward the kitchen. He listened for voices, but the sounds inside the house were drowned by the noise of the heat pump, its compressor whooshing in the shrubbery beside him.

A picnic table flanked the near side of the patio, and Tyler sat on one of the benches to compose his thoughts, compose his verbal resignation. He considered and rejected half a dozen different opening lines.

Quit stalling, he berated himself. Just knock, and get it over with.

CHAPTER 48

Satterfield

Satterfield glanced from face to face, reveling in how well things were going — better, even, than he’d imagined they would. The three Brocktons and the girl were seated around the kitchen table in a bizarre variation on family dinner: four half-finished plates of pasta and salad in front of them, duct tape over their mouths, zip ties cinching their ankles and wrists to the frames of the ladderback chairs.

The girl had been a surprise. “She has nothing to do with this,” Brockton had tried arguing. “Neither does Kathleen or Jeff. This is just between you and me. Let them go.” Satterfield had cocked his head, pretending to consider the stupid request; then he’d smiled, shaken his head, and yanked the tape tight across Brockton’s mouth. The girl was a juicy little bonus; a windfall apple. Manna from heaven, he thought.

Brockton would be the last to die, of course. A big part of his suffering — though far, far from all of his suffering — would be to witness the agonies of the others, knowing that he himself was to blame. Utterly and solely to blame.

Laying the gun on the end of the table, Satterfield reached into his back pocket for the gardening shears. He held them toward the light, squeezing the spring-loaded handles, admiring the tight precision with which the blades closed and opened. Their curved edges — the upper blade convex, the lower one concave — reminded him of a cartoon fish, grinning with its oversized mouth. The coiled spring that pushed the handles apart made a soft, musical squeak each time the cartoon-fish mouth opened or closed. Pointing the tool toward each of them in turn, he recited, “Eeny meeny miny mo…” He paused and looked at Brockton again. “Or do you want to choose? Tell me — shall I start with the girl?” He smiled as Brockton grunted and shook his head frantically. “No? With your son, then?” He leaned across the table, the shears opening in his hand as he dropped the jaws below the table and toward the boy’s crotch.

“Nnnnhhh,” shrilled Brockton, struggling and thrashing so hard that his chair threatened to tip.

“No? Not him? Okay, whatever you say.” Satterfield stepped to Kathleen’s side and snipped the zip tie binding her right wrist to the chair. “I don’t know who I’ll send this one to,” he said, taking hold of her hand, lifting it by the little finger. “But I’ll think of someone.” He squeezed, and the handles of the shears came together, and the grinning fish closed its jaws on her finger.

CHAPTER 49

Tyler

Quit stalling, Tyler berated himself again, and forced himself to stand and walk to the patio door. He was raising his hand to knock when he froze, his knuckle an inch from the door. On the other side of the glass, Jeff had reached out and taken hold of a small, slender hand — Kathleen’s hand, Tyler assumed — and clasped the pinky finger between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Then he turned slightly — a few degrees, no more — but it was enough for Tyler to see that it was not Jeff at all. As his brain scrambled to interpret the data and identify the face, he felt a rush of panic. A moment later, his conscious mind caught up with the faster circuitry of his subconscious, and he recognized the face: the murder suspect, Satterfield! Just then he saw Satterfield reach toward Kathleen’s finger with his right hand. Light glinted on steel, and then Kathleen’s arm swung free, arced toward the floor, slinging blood as it dropped. Satterfield still clasped her little finger in his left hand, a pair of bloody gardening shears in the other. Her head jerked, and through her nostrils and the tape across her mouth came a muffled, whinnying scream.

Tyler gasped and staggered backward as if he’d been struck. He fought back the impulse to scream and the need to vomit, knowing that revealing his presence was almost certain to trigger a massacre inside. Think, he commanded himself. Think! God, why hadn’t he gotten a cell phone when Roxanne had suggested it? He spun, scanning in vain for the glimmer of lights in neighboring houses. Should he run back to the street and start banging on doors? Was there even time for that? How long would it take for the police to get here in force — ten minutes? half an hour? The image of the arrow-pierced bodies flashed into his mind — two brutal deaths in quick succession — and he knew that the Brocktons might not have ten minutes. It’s up to me, he thought. I have to stop it. But how? Jesus God, how? Satterfield surely had a gun — maybe more than one. Tyler had nothing, not even a set of keys. Sweaty running clothes and his bare hands, that was all he had. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

CHAPTER 50

Brockton

I heard a chorus of muffled screams, including my own, when Satterfield cut off Kathleen’s finger. My heart was racing and my chest was heaving; with the duct tape over my mouth, I couldn’t get enough air, and felt close to blacking out. Calm down, I commanded myself. Calm down. Breathe. Think. If you panic instead of thinking, everybody dies. At death scenes — even gruesome ones, like the woman’s body pinned to the tree by arrows — I was generally able to distance myself from the horror; to look at the scene as a puzzle. Could I do that now? I didn’t know, but it seemed our only hope.

Satterfield laid Kathleen’s finger on the table, along with the gardening shears, and picked up his gun again. I forced myself to observe his face, his movements, his surroundings, as if he were a research subject.

Over his shoulder, I suddenly glimpsed movement — a reflection in the sliding-glass door? No, I realized with a shock. Something — someone — outside the door, out on the patio. I waited and watched, tuning out the sights and sounds and horrors closer at hand. There it was again — a face! My God — Tyler’s face! Perhaps there was a glimmer of hope.

But it was faint, and it was fleeting. We didn’t have much time — maybe not even time for Tyler to go next door and call the police. If the police did come, and if Satterfield heard them, he’d kill us swiftly, before they could stop him.

It’s up to Tyler, I thought desperately, and then thought despairingly, How? It would take a miracle. The word itself—miracle—gave me an idea. It was an absurd idea, but it was the only idea I had.

I shifted my focus back to Satterfield. I had to get his attention; I had to persuade him to take the tape off my mouth. I grunted his name, as best I could through the tape: Nnn-nn-nnn. NNN-nn-nnn. He looked at me quizzically. NNN-nn-nnn!

Now his expression changed to amusement. “Are you speaking to me?” I nodded, praying. “You have something important to say?” I nodded again. “What could you possibly say that would interest me now? ‘I’m sorry?’ Too late. ‘Kill me first?’ Not a chance.” I shook my head firmly. “You really mean it, don’t you? You actually think you have something to say.” I nodded. Don’t look desperate, I urged myself. Look strong. Look smart. Look like you know something he needs to know. “Tell you what,” he said finally. “We’ll play a game. I’ll let you talk for ten seconds. If you scream, I shoot your wife. If you bore me, I shoot your son. Deal?”

I nodded again. It was an easy deal to make; we were all dead anyhow.

With his left hand, he pressed the muzzle of the gun to my temple. With his right, he picked up the gardening shears and brought the tips of the blades to my face. For a moment I expected him to cut off my nose, but he turned the tool sideways and slit the duct tape. I drew a deep breath — the air felt precious — and then I began to speak, softly at first, then gradually louder: “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, with knowledge of good and evil. And the Lord looked at the garden, and he drove them from it.” Satterfield stared at me as if I’d lost my mind, and perhaps I had. I wasn’

t counting the seconds, but he hadn’t shot anyone — not yet, at least. The next part was the important part. Please be out there, Tyler, I prayed. Please listen. Please understand. “And in the garden he placed an angel,” I went on, with rising fervor, like an old-time preacher. “An angel with spreading wings and a mighty sword. So that if any evildoer should come therein, the angel could fly at him with the sword, and smite the evil one, like the whirling hammer of the Lord God Almighty.”

CHAPTER 51

Tyler

Jesus God, thought Tyler, his mind racing and his heart pounding as Brockton’s ravings — his coded message — sank in. How many years since Tyler’s last track meet? Three? No, four: his sophomore year of undergrad. Could he even do it anymore? No point worrying about it; given the situation, it was do or die. More like try and die, he thought grimly.

Squatting beside the concrete angel in the garden — this had to be what Brockton meant — he curled his fingers beneath the wings and hoisted the statue a few inches off the ground, swinging it slowly back and forth like a pendulum, getting the feel of it. It didn’t feel right: The wings were too wide; his hands were too far apart, and the angel’s head was pressing into his belly. Worse, he could tell that if he released one wing before the other — even a microsecond before the other — the statue would tumble out of control and miss its mark. Frowning, he laid it down and studied it, circling it like a wary dog. Halfway around, he had an idea. Squatting again, he gripped the angel by the thin, circular base beneath the feet and straightened, then swayed to set it swinging, this time head down. Better, he thought. Much better. The mass and balance weren’t exactly the same as the hammer’s — the statue felt much heavier; maybe thirty pounds rather than sixteen — but he wouldn’t be throwing for distance, only for accuracy. It would do. It had to do.